With professional golf in town, just down the road at Pinehurst and Jordan Spieth's recent success at that level, I was inspired to poke around and see what I had on him. Turns out, I took a few shots of him at Morrins Williams Golf Course in Austin when I shot a fundraising event there. All the guys were nice and it was a beautiful course -- one of my favorite shoots, definitely my favorite golf shoot.

Hook 'Em \m/

33 Is Good, 34 Is Tradition, 35 Trips To The College World Series Is Ownership

In light of Texas Baseball's recent clinching of an incredible 35th College World Series berth, I thought I'd toss up a couple shots I took during my stay in Austin. Disch-Falk Field is still one of my favoriate ballparks to see a game -- and shoot one too.

Hook 'Em \m/

First Street Bridge Over The Water

I turned on the TV last night and caught a little of the X Games BMX and skate vert finals. Looks like they just closed down part of Congress and set up the ramp in front of the capitol. Reminded me I still haven't posted this image I took on an especially hot afternoon when I happened to be downtown with my camera. I shot this beneath the First Street bridge, which is one of three to cross Lady Bird Lake downtown. If only this image could convey the intense heat. Oh how I hated, hated the heat.

Shake It Up

Actually I have no idea if this machine really does shake the specimens, but I know they end up in there and something incredible happens. The machine is pretty large, but not too loud. Now that I've set the scene, I'll explain what the photo actually shows. I took this in a laboratory doing blood work to help relive the North Carolina DWI case backlog. Though it may not be easy to tell, careful consideration was taken during this staged photo to ensure no protected information was visible. That is absolutely vital when photographing anything in health care.

Stretch It Out; Break It In

I was recently fortunate enough to photograph a remarkable outcome in Randolph County. This woman had one of her shoulders replaced and was holding complex yoga poses six months later. She told me she was determined not to let this replacement slow her down and did she ever back that up in the studio. This was one of the many positions she held for those of us at the shoot. I selected this one to share mainly because of the light and the position.

View From The Shore At Lady Bird

The title is a bit of an homage and but also makes sense as this is one of the first 120mm film photographs I ever made. Generally I reserve the medium-format monster for studio work and portraits, simply because it's so clunky to take out and about, but on this day, I just needed to fill the roll so I could process it. I wandered to the edge of Lady Bird Lake, which runs through downtown Austin, and snapped this image, along with a few others. I cooled it off a little with the blue tritone since this is mostly a waters-edge shot. Ironically, as is usually the case, that day was anything but cool.

Happy Behind My Camera

I have never understood swimming as a recreational activity. I understand diving to see fish or collect weighted objects thrown into a pool. Swimming laps for rehabilitation or exercise makes sense to me. I even get the occasional game of chicken at a party, but jumping in the middle of a lake with no particular goal other than to have a conversation while wet has always perplexed me. To some degree, I have struggled with a similar issue as a photographer. I have never been particularly great at grabbing the camera, wandering around outside and photographing whatever comes across my path. I'm always looking two steps ahead, trying to find the goal, the end user, the reason, the point. I blame journalism because it facilitated my first real exposure to photography. Most of the time, newspaper photogs shoot what they're told to shoot and usually for the same reason -- to publish in print and on the internet. No sweat.

But I do appreciate the opportunity to blend the two -- shooting for a purpose and shooting as the purpose. As has been the case for me for so long now, regardless of where or how I'm working, somebody, somewhere wants or needs photographs. I say this is often the case, but I'm not saying I don't enjoy this reality. I have a fairly wide skillset, including writing, design, video production and building and maintaining this very website, so I am grateful to walk down a career path which is fluid and flexible enough to allow me both reasons and requirements to work as a photographer. Anything becomes a grind in overload, but almost always, shooting photos makes me happy. I have been fortunate enough to find myself in the position which affords me the opportunity to blend those two ways of approaching photography. My photographs nearly always take a reason, but I have a lot to say about how those assignments come to fulfillment.

Below are a few more-recent versions of such fulfillment, including photographs of a woman who has volunteered more than 32,000 hours of her life to a hospital (top) and a 100-year-old woman who doesn't look a day beyond 29 (fourth down) -- Ok, maybe a day or two, but certainly she can't be 100.